War has plagued humankind for as long as history cares to ever recount. With war, has always come burdens, which lay upon the shoulders and hearts of those cast into its maw. In Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried”, the men of Alpha Company yield prime examples of the withering effects of the Vietnam War on the soul, body, and mind. Among the many hefty burdens borne by the various men of Alpha Company, the death of a friend or comrade is perhaps the heaviest; overwhelming those who are unable to cope with afflictions like survivor’s guilt, sociopathy, and rage.
The list of damages from the Vietnam War is seemingly endless in length; with many of these relentless affectations falling under the ominous label of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. From a statistical standpoint, “About 7 or 8 out of every 100 people will have PTSD at some point in their lives” (ptsd.va.gov). Considering the nearly 3 million American soldiers that served in Vietnam, that places approximately 240,000 men at risk of having one of the assorted and vicious disorders. Along with the already crippling effects of PTSD, suicide and thoughts thereof run rampant through veterans of the Vietnam War, and “suicide rates among Vietnam veterans are the highest of any particular group” (abcnews.go.com). …show more content…
Between the two, the number of remaining living Vietnam veterans is steadily declining.
One crushing branch of PTSD is survivor’s guilt. This all-consuming syndrome eats away at one’s conscience and can make a soldier question their very right to still be drawing breath. “The Things They Carried” presents an incomprehensibly perfect example in the form of one Norman Bowker. Bowker carries all of the standard equipment and a diary, as well as the crushing guilt of ‘allowing’ a friend to die. In the shit field along the Song Tra Bong River, where the men set up camp only to be attacked later in the night, Norman watches as one of his squad mates and friends, Kiowa, is caught by a mortar shell. He rushes to save him from sinking into the muck, but even as he pulls on the man’s boot desperately trying to free him from the swallowing sludge, he is overwhelmed and gives up; he watches numbly as Kiowa’s boot sinks beneath the surface and the bubbles stop rising from its putrid depths. The raw emotion in the thoughts of those struggling with this illness of the mind is given a somewhat exceptional description by being detailed as wonderings such as “Why I survived and those others didn’t” (anothersource.co) or “How could I ever feel equal to those who gave it up?” (anothersource.co). “The self-criticism never stops,” as a sufferer puts it, “I am my own worst enemy” (anothersource.co). Norman Bowker looks for help but still refuses to bother those around him and allows the guilt to erode away at his mind. The closest he comes to seeking closure is the letter he sends to O’Brien, pleading with him to “write a story about a guy who feels like he got zapped over in that shithole. A guy who can’t get his act together and just drives around town all day and can’t think of any damn place to go and doesn’t know how to get there anyway” (O’Brien 157). He feels that if O’Brien can write him a story about what happened and if he can just see that there is a way for others to finally understand what keeps devouring him from the inside, then maybe, just maybe... he can find a way to cope with the excruciating agony that has become his every thought. He shows how badly he wants to find a way out when he writes of how “this guy wants to talk about it, but he can’t” (O’Brien 157). In the end, O’Brien’s story falls short of Bowker’s hopes, but he still manages to struggle on for a while. Sadly, “eight months later he hanged himself” (O’Brien 160), and just like so very many others… he becomes little more than another statistic and a sad memory. Vietnam does far more than just break the spirits of the men so unfortunate as to be drafted and deployed. In the case of Azar and so many others, it also holds the terrible power to destroy the mind. Through
The list of damages from the Vietnam War is seemingly endless in length; with many of these relentless affectations falling under the ominous label of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. From a statistical standpoint, “About 7 or 8 out of every 100 people will have PTSD at some point in their lives” (ptsd.va.gov). Considering the nearly 3 million American soldiers that served in Vietnam, that places approximately 240,000 men at risk of having one of the assorted and vicious disorders. Along with the already crippling effects of PTSD, suicide and thoughts thereof run rampant through veterans of the Vietnam War, and “suicide rates among Vietnam veterans are the highest of any particular group” (abcnews.go.com). …show more content…
Between the two, the number of remaining living Vietnam veterans is steadily declining.
One crushing branch of PTSD is survivor’s guilt. This all-consuming syndrome eats away at one’s conscience and can make a soldier question their very right to still be drawing breath. “The Things They Carried” presents an incomprehensibly perfect example in the form of one Norman Bowker. Bowker carries all of the standard equipment and a diary, as well as the crushing guilt of ‘allowing’ a friend to die. In the shit field along the Song Tra Bong River, where the men set up camp only to be attacked later in the night, Norman watches as one of his squad mates and friends, Kiowa, is caught by a mortar shell. He rushes to save him from sinking into the muck, but even as he pulls on the man’s boot desperately trying to free him from the swallowing sludge, he is overwhelmed and gives up; he watches numbly as Kiowa’s boot sinks beneath the surface and the bubbles stop rising from its putrid depths. The raw emotion in the thoughts of those struggling with this illness of the mind is given a somewhat exceptional description by being detailed as wonderings such as “Why I survived and those others didn’t” (anothersource.co) or “How could I ever feel equal to those who gave it up?” (anothersource.co). “The self-criticism never stops,” as a sufferer puts it, “I am my own worst enemy” (anothersource.co). Norman Bowker looks for help but still refuses to bother those around him and allows the guilt to erode away at his mind. The closest he comes to seeking closure is the letter he sends to O’Brien, pleading with him to “write a story about a guy who feels like he got zapped over in that shithole. A guy who can’t get his act together and just drives around town all day and can’t think of any damn place to go and doesn’t know how to get there anyway” (O’Brien 157). He feels that if O’Brien can write him a story about what happened and if he can just see that there is a way for others to finally understand what keeps devouring him from the inside, then maybe, just maybe... he can find a way to cope with the excruciating agony that has become his every thought. He shows how badly he wants to find a way out when he writes of how “this guy wants to talk about it, but he can’t” (O’Brien 157). In the end, O’Brien’s story falls short of Bowker’s hopes, but he still manages to struggle on for a while. Sadly, “eight months later he hanged himself” (O’Brien 160), and just like so very many others… he becomes little more than another statistic and a sad memory. Vietnam does far more than just break the spirits of the men so unfortunate as to be drafted and deployed. In the case of Azar and so many others, it also holds the terrible power to destroy the mind. Through